


Hold

by eccentrics (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:52:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/eccentrics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over christmas break, the four kids go visit Dave for Christmas; he watches Jade ice skate down at the mall below. (Set post!SBURB)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold

He likes to stand on top of roof, he rarely stays in his own apartment at this time of night, he can’t explain it to anyone yet but maybe one day he will.  Maybe one day he’ll explain why even though he can barely stand the textures of everything else, why he can barely look at anything without his shades on or taste anything that isn’t junk, he can somehow stand the dirty air of the city; he can somehow _breathe_ it all.

The air is always dirty, he’s just more aware of it now, something that he isn’t fond of.  He hates being more aware, not that he wasn’t already, just it gets kind of annoying being aware of every siren, every honk, every light, every piece of dirt in the air.  It’s something he picked up from those days, sometimes he can’t sleep, but he doesn’t bother telling anyone else about it.

He knows they can’t sleep either, he knows how John jumps sometimes, how Rose spends an hour looking at her window before sleeping and how Jade mumbles whole conversations in her dreams.  

He doesn’t care, they were here and alive, weren’t they?

Besides Dave can finally see them from the roof.

If he was John, he would have ran down there to meet them before they even came near the door.  If he was Rose, he would have waited promptly at his apartment door.  If he was Jade, he would try calling from the roof he was standing on right now.

Instead he pulls down his shades a fraction, just to make sure, and starts making his way back down to the apartment.

When there’s a knock at the door, he makes his way towards the door.

“Dave!”

“Strider.”

“Hey, dude.”

Dave smiles to himself, just a little.   _Jade, Egbert, Lalonde._ “What’s up?  It’s been awhile.”

\---

John complains about the fact he has to buy all three of them birthday presents _and_ christmas presents, Rose points out that Dave’s living conditions weren’t all that satisfactory and Jade asks if there’s going to be snow in Houston.

Dave decides to take them all to the mall, the Galleria specifically, letting Rose surprise him with her ideas on what to do with the house and buying Jade a pair of ice skates to rent and skate down below while he and John go shopping.

“You’re not supposed to be with me to buy a birthday gift!”  John is still complaining, he’s been getting better at it ever since he’s been talking with the trolls.  “Besides, you have to get gifts for them too, so you should go looking for some so I can buy your gift without you knowing!”

Dave nods a bit at this even though he doesn’t really agree, he looks around at a store or two, he doubts John even knows what he’s looking for.  “I’m thinking, I’ll get something on my own time.”  

“Whatever Dave.”

“Besides you know I don’t care if I see my gifts now or later.”

“There’s only a certain joy I can get on Christmas, I mean now that I missed all three of your birthdays and all.  Sorry about that by the way.”

Dave shrugs, glancing at John for a second and stops by a store.  “There’s a lot of stuff here, I’ll just keep an eye on Jade from up here.”  Dave nods his head to the ice rink down below and John smirks a little bit, which doesn’t phase Dave at all.

“Egbert wipe that look off your face before I talk about your crush on Lalonde.”

John’s smirk quickly did leave his face and he mumbles a _bye Dave_ before leaving to the store, Dave waves a hand to him and looks down below.

There’s a Christmas tree right in the middle of ice rink, there are decorations everywhere, things that Dave wasn’t paying attention to and things that Jade probably had her every eye on.  He can see her, right out of the corner from his shades, staring up at a Christmas tree with wide green eyes.  Dave lowers his shades down just a little, if she was 13 again she might be touching an ornament or two, but she isn’t she’s just staring in that bizarre wonder of hers.

She wonders if she’s like him, she wants to be thirteen again, feeling on top of the world and not like the new awareness they had is a burden but it could still be used as a gift.  He supposes that he’s supposed to get over all of that by now, supposed to have this new found confidence to be himself without the super powers and all.  Sometimes Dave wishes they were that open with each other again, but Rose works too hard, John gets more aloof by the second and Jade is always afraid to act on her own wonder.  This is just stuff that happens when you almost screw up the whole entire world.  

This isn’t stuff he wishes for often, just the stuff that he thinks about when he watches Jade, watches her move and watches her laugh.

Nobody else is laughing in that ice rink by themselves, nobody else is as happy as she is and that’s a bit hopeful for him.  She’s always fascinated by the smallest of things, always bringing him back to reality that they did something _big_ and that in itself is fascinating, something they should all be proud of; which is just something Dave isn’t really good at.

Dave figures he’s been talking to her too much, he has no insecurities, no mess in his mind, he just lives his life and occasionally creates strings of poetry in his head; he’s just a musician with a couple of jagged edges.

He’s just Dave Strider, he’s not much else, but he’s always ( _recently_ ) accepted that.

He finds himself moving further down to the ice rink, to get a closer view, she isn’t staring at the Christmas tree or the decorations anymore, she’s _moving_.

Jade doesn’t move like an ice skater should, Jade is never graceful but she is always _moving_.  She’s obviously never done this before, but she never falls and she never stops, she just falters here and there circling the rink around in twenty different ways.  And he’s standing by the edge, watching her come towards him, with a smile on her face and glasses slightly messed up.

He blinks, “Hey.”

Jade smiles at him and takes one of his hands, she doesn’t seem to think the gesture is odd and Dave only spends a second staring down at it.  “It doesn’t snow here does it?”

“It did once, a couple years ago it snowed maybe an inch.”

Jade laughs at him, still holding on to his hand, trying not to fall down on the ice below.  “That’s okay, I’ve seen a lot of snow before.  It’s not as great as everyone says, I just thought it would be better with you around.”

Dave doesn’t know what to make of that, but he decides just to humor her, that’s what he’s doing obviously.  “It would be better with me around I guess.”

“You’re so _cool_ Dave.”  Jade lets go of his hand and Dave looks up, watching her move again unevenly but still _moving_ away from him, so then he leans over a bit over the railing.

Nobody’s called him that in a long time.

“Do you want to shop for Rose’s birthday present with me?”

Jade falls down on the ice right then, looking up from the other side and laughs.  “Sure!”  She then stands up, skating towards him, still all laughs and smiles.  “I guess I shouldn’t have let go, huh?”

Dave nods at her, lowering down his shades, so she could see the faintest hint of red if she looked hard enough. “Come on, you can even pick Christmas decorations, I’m kind of scared of what Rose is planning for Christmas.”

And she takes his hand again, this time they don’t let go of each other.


End file.
